About Me

My life was described by one of my editors as “impossibly exotic” – although really it was not my life, but me, that was the exotic, the uprooted plant, the one who didn’t belong, always living in someone else’s backyard...
Now I am back in Australia, the returning native learning to live where I was born. Writer, traveler, environmentalist. Author of The Isles of Glory trilogy (The Aware, Gilfeather, The Tainted); The Mirage Makers trilogy (Heart of the Mirage, Shadow of Tyr, Song of the Shiver Barrens); The Stormlord trilogy The Last Stormlord, Stormlord Rising, Stormlord's Exile, and writing as Glenda Noramly, a stand-alone book Havenstar. LATEST:
THE FORSAKEN LANDS
A clash of cultures and magic as traders and buccaneers hunt for spices and wealth in the Va-forsaken half of the world ... even as the unidentified darkness of plague and murder stalks their own land.
THE LASCAR'S DAGGER and THE DAGGER'S PATH available worldwide now! Final book, THE FALL OF THE DAGGER out mid-April.

One irritating thing I have begun to notice about terminology -- Australian tourist brochures calling gorges "canyons". Canyon has its origins in American Spanish. It is an American term for American landforms.

I would not apply the word arroyo to an Australian gorge; why use the word "canyon"? (I don't call the boot of my car the trunk, either.) Gorge has European ancestry, and as such it has always been the choice of the first non-indigenous Australians. If we want to change it, then the logical thing would be to find out if there is an appropriate indigenous term, not decide to use an American one.

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Exmouth ... still working on the copy edit!The area sprang to fame during the cold war because of the US base there keeping a watch on what the Russians were up to.Now it is better known for the swimming with whale sharks, the manta rays, one of the longest fringing coral reefs, game fishing out to sea, turtles, whale watching, wildlife and gorges...We were a little unlucky in that there had been some floods a few months earlier, which meant we coudn't get into some sites.Still, there are kilometres of pristine beaches and reefs...Sometimes complete with pelicans (below)...

Or a teenager (below) reading Book 1 of The Hunger Games... ( I asked her)

Or a family (below), a whole beach to themselves and their sand castle...

Or an Reef Heron with an entire bay to itself... and on the right, one of the many pairs of Ospreys in the area, this nest on the Visitor Centre tower.

Above: a view from the Lighthouse...of the Lighthouse caravan park ...

The Vlamingh Head Lighthouse, built 1911, decommissioned 1967.

The Exmouth Naval Communication Station, above, was particularly valuable to maintain communications with the submarine fleet. At one time, the tallest of these towers was the second tallest structure in the Southern Hemisphere! 387.6m ... and able to withstand a N.W. cyclone wind of up to 500 km per hr.

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

The Cape Range National Park has more than just the coast and the sea to offer visitors. There's also the gorges.

That's my sister middle right, to give an idea of scale. Ospreys were nesting in that gash in the rock (see next pix), the corellas were hiding in cliff face holes and a single Nankeen Ketrel drifted past...

We are in the land of spinifex grass, and anthills ...

A riverboat edges its way up the gorge.

We were lucky to spot the Black-footed Rock Wallabies, very rare; this is one of the few places they are found. Unfortunately, although I had a great view through binoculars, the camera shot was difficult as they kept hopping around and disappearing...

Our exploration of Yardie Gorge ended with a picnic lunch at the beginning of the trail, where the lovely Crested Pigeons acted like town pigeons in a park...

Saturday, July 26, 2014

Yesterday my post showed our modest rig on the road. This is what it looked like at one of our numerous stopovers.
The beds are pulled out at either end. And yes, this
time I really am doing that copyedit...

Coral Bay is a pretty place -- mostly camping sites and caravan parks! -- and a dreamy coastline which is all part of the Ningaloo Coast World Heritage Area.

The snorkelling is supposed to be pretty good, but the wind made it rather unsettled while we were there.

Still, I love just walking a long the beach and seeing what's to be found.

Like the bits and pieces of the reef washed up on the shore...

Or the variety of seashells, limpets, periwinkles, oysters and such. And by the way, it is no longer considered proper to remove anything from a beach, anywhere -- not just within national parks, even empty shells or stones.

This notice tickled my fancy...

Of course, it was talking about the sanctuary for reef sharks in the sea, not on the sand dunes where the sign was. Black-tipped, white-tipped and grey reef sharks can be sighted here at certain times of the year.

And no, I wouldn't want to disturb them.

Gorgeous stretches of beaches and white coral sands...

And birds. These were Crested Terns, the huge Caspian Terns and the ubiquitous Silver Gulls.

The interesting thing about the photo though is that long line of white in the distance. That's the rough swell rolling in from Africa to crash against the offshore reefs. The graveyard of many ships.

Of course, I was doing my share of birding. I stopped to snap a couple of young Welcome Swallows
on a log on the beach, only to realise they were being fed by Mum &
Dad. I then attempted to catch the feeding in the act, only to find that
the adults fed the young in flight. That is they flew past
shoving the food down the gullet of the young in passing, so to speak.
Remarkable dexterity. One of the youngsters then decided that was fun
and started flying so he or she could be fed while in flight as well.

Friday, July 25, 2014

This above was our first pitstop on the way north, and shows our rig, which was to be our home for the next 3 weeks.

This was a lookout along the highway north, looking across to Shark Bay. You can just see a thin blue line that is the sea around the small camping place of Gladstone. The bird is a crow; as one moves away from Perth, Australian Ravens disappear and one finds instead the Little and Torresian Crows.

You also discover the wierdness of Australian travellers, who seem to have an abundance of garden gnomes they want to rid themsleves of on their travels...

These little guys (above and below) overlook a steep cliff

Those are little green plants are trees, way down on the plains. Those red spots are gnome heads on the cliff edge...

Above: here's a close up of the gnomes

And another pix of me copyediting in the wilderness.

(Ok, so this one was posed, just to make my editors feel guilty.Bet that's not successful, though -- editors are a hard-hearted bunch. Ask any poor writer...)

Links

Awards

BEST FANTASY NOVEL OF THE YEAR Shortlisted Finalist2003: for The Aware; 2004: for The Tainted; 2006: for Heart of the Mirage; 2007: for The Song of the Shiver Barrens; 2009: for The Last Stormlord 2010: for Stormlord Rising 2011: for Stormlord's Exile 2014: The Lascar's Dagger 2015: The Dagger's Path 2016: The Fall of the Dagger